Breakdown of Моему дедушке с трудом удалось бросить курить.
мой
my (мой, моя, моё) / mine
дедушка
grandfather
с
with (also со)
курить
to smoke
удаться
to manage / to succeed (perfective)
труд
difficulty / effort (labor)
бросить
to quit / to throw
Questions & Answers about Моему дедушке с трудом удалось бросить курить.
Why is the grandfather in the Dative case (моему дедушке) instead of the Nominative case?
In Russian, verbs of success like удаться (to manage or to succeed) are impersonal. This means the person who succeeds isn't the grammatical subject. Instead, they are put in the Dative case, meaning the sentence is literally structured like 'to my grandfather, it managed.'
Why does the verb end in -ось (удалось)?
Because удаться is acting as an impersonal verb here and there is no Nominative subject doing the action, its past tense defaults to the neuter singular ending -ось.
Why is с трудом used to mean 'with difficulty' and what case is it?
Трудом is the Instrumental case of труд (labor or effort). The preposition с followed by the Instrumental case is often used to describe how an action is performed. So, с трудом literally translates to 'with effort' or 'with difficulty'.
We have two infinitives here: бросить (perfective) and курить (imperfective). Why must курить be imperfective?
In Russian, verbs that mean to start, continue, finish, or quit an action (like бросить) must always be followed by an imperfective infinitive. Even though the act of quitting was a completed success, the smoking itself was an ongoing habit or process.
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